Public schools are unfair and un-Christian says Alan Bennett: Playwright wants fee-paying schools to be merged with the state system

By Laura Craik for MailOnline

Published: 19:23 EST, 18 June 2014 | Updated: 02:51 EST, 19 June 2014

Grammar schoolboy Alan Bennett believes that fee-paying schools are unfair, unchristian and shoud be abolished

Alan Bennett has made a scathing attack on private education, declaring it ‘not fair’ and ‘not Christian’.

In provocative remarks, the former grammar schoolboy accused successive governments of failing to ‘tackle’ private education and called for fee-paying schools to be merged with state.

He claimed that reluctance to curb private schooling partly stemmed from ‘unfocused parental anxiety’ about ‘class’ and children having to mix with ‘rough’ classmates.

Bennett used a ‘sermon’ at Cambridge University to lament that children were still likely to do better at a public school than a state secondary.

His remarks drew immediate condemnation from the Independent Schools Council, which represents more than 1,200 fee-paying schools.

It said shutting down successful schools was not ‘the obvious solution’.

In his lecture, Bennett said his objection to private education was ‘simply put’.

‘It is not fair. And to say that nothing is fair is not an answer. Governments, even this one, exist to make the nation’s circumstances more fair, but no government, whatever its complexion, has dared to tackle private education,’ he said.

‘Private education is not fair. Those who provide it know it. Those who pay for it know it. Those who have to sacrifice in order to purchase it know it. And those who receive it know it, or should. And if their education ends without it dawning on them, then that education has been wasted.’

He called for ‘gradual reform’, beginning with ‘the amalgamation of state and public schools at sixth-form level’.

This was ‘hardly revolutionary’, he said.

He added that private education was ‘not Christian either’.

Bennett wants to see the end of this - Eton schoolboys

‘Souls, after all, are equal in the sight of God and thus deserving of what these days is called a level playing field. This is certainly not the case in education and never has been, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go on trying. Isn’t it time we made a proper start?’ he asked.

Bennett himself attended Leeds Modern School, a boys’ grammar, from 1946 to 1952.

In the 1970s, it emerged with the local girls’ grammar and became Lawnswood School, a comprehensive.

In 2009, Ofsted placed the school in special measures, although it is now judged ‘good’.

Bennett’s play The History Boys, which featured pupils at a fictional Northern grammar school vying for places at Oxbridge, was last year voted the nation’s favourite play ahead of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

In his lecture at King’s College Chapel, reprinted this week in the London Review of Books, Bennett recounted how he was offered a place at Cambridge after sitting a scholarship exam in history.

As he sat the exam, he first came across ‘public schoolboys in the mass’ and was ‘appalled’.

‘They were loud, self-confident and all seemed to know one another, shouting down the table to prove it while also being shockingly greedy,’ he said.

‘Public school they might be but they were louts.’

The grammar school boys sitting the exams, in contrast, were ‘timorous and genteel’.

He said he felt the ‘odds were stacked against’ him and assumed the position of state-educated pupils would improve.

Decades later, the problem persisted, he argued.

Jolly good show: Three Etonians partake in an old tradition - receiving a thruppenny bit from the provost

‘Still, and this is not to discount the many excellent schools in the state sector, a child of average ability is likely to do better at a good public school,’ he said.

Bennett ended up accepting a place at Exeter College, Oxford. He first became famous as a member of Beyond the Fringe with fellow Oxbridge graduates Dudley Moore, Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller.

He added: ‘There is a reluctance to share more widely (and thus to dilute) the undoubted advantages of a private education: smaller classes, better facilities and still, seemingly, a greater chance of getting to university.’

But Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council, said: ‘Alan Bennett appears to argue that it is unfair if some schools are better than others.  

‘We agree with this, but do not think that abolition of successful schools is the obvious solution.  

‘The best solution is that pursued by all recent governments: learn from the best schools, whatever sector they are in, and pass the lessons on to all schools.  

‘Independent schools are very keen to widen access and are committed to improving social mobility. Over a third of pupils at our schools receive some fee assistance with ISC independent schools providing £660 million this year.’

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